The March Madness Minimalist

How I found an NCAA swag bag watch: online.

Every year, 68 teams make the NCAA tournament. In their swag bag, the NCAA and Fossil give each recipient a limited edition watch. Adding in coaches and volunteers, there are probably 2,000 or so watches—at least—made each year for the NCAA swag bag.

A 2015 article on AL.com gives you a look into what these swag bags are like:

According to the Sports Business Journal, players in the NCAA men's Division I basketball tournament receive: Fossil watch, Wilson bag, Wilson mini-ball, Men's Final Four bench chair, Jostens ring in a commemorative wooden display box, a piece of the Final Four court, and a Lucite Men's Final Four ticket.

Imagine getting a chair in a swag bag. Not very convenient if you’re flying. Still, something I would want to keep if I were given one. In recent years, at least since 2015, Fossil has been the watch supplier for these bags.

You can look at and bid on recent model years here.

Perusing the ShopGoodwill website recently, I found such a watch being auctioned from the Portland-area Goodwill. It could have been given to a player, a coach, TV guy, referee or a student-volunteer. Whoever got it, never wore it and didn’t want it.

In the end, I won the auction for $17 and was happy to get this new watch, in box, with tags and protective covering. And in time for March Madness, as I run a bracket tournament for the subscribers of the magazine where I work.

This model, the #PR5475, is a private-label model version of the Fossil Minimalist, a three-hand quartz dress watch you can get for between $75 and $150, depending on the style and bracelet. One site values this model at $111 before the printing on the dial.

The 44mm dial wears wide, like a decorative plate. The syringe-style hands are lumed, and the second hand seems like it was chosen to be a basketball-colored orange. It mostly hits its marks and is quiet.

There is no day/date complication and the tapered case is exceedingly thin at just 8mm. It’s water resistant to 5ATM and the included 22mm Stainless Steel mesh band is easily swapped, as it is a quick change style.

The hour indices are metal and raised, and beyond them at the edge of the dial, separated by a stamped chasm, are numeral minute indicators every five minutes, along with minute markers.

I don’t have any teams in this year’s tournament, nor have any of my teams every really had truly memorable runs, so the fact that this 2023 watch doesn’t have the year is a plus in my book. I kind of feel like Rob Lowe with his NFL hat: I’m here just because I like March Madness. Maybe someday my Billikens or Buckeyes will win it all. Not counting on it, though.

I figured the mesh bracelet would be minimally sufficient, but I was wrong: It’s weighty and ample, and easy to change: I’m keeping it. Say what you want about Fossils, they do make a big deal about having good bracelets: as leather is kind of their thing with the wallets, watch bands, purses, etc.

One dig against the watch is the textured crown, which can dig into your wrist if you’re not careful when sizing the bracelet. Depending on what strap you have on, this may or may not be a concern.

Not much is known about the Quartz movement, and with no JAPAN MOVT indicator on the dial and the thinness of the watch, it is probably a Chinese movement, or very small Japanese movement used on women’s watches. I could open it and find out, I guess, but with it running, I don’t see much of a reason. It keeps good time.

If you have wondered why your Goodwill branded thrift stores seem to have a worse selection of watches, there’s a reason: Goodwill has gone online.

ShopGoodwill, not to be confused with GoodwillFinds, is an auction site, like EBay. You bid, and pay shipping and processing. The shipping can be costly for some finds, as much or more than a watch itself, but the site at least lets you know what the shipping will cost before you bid.

Spend some time there and you might score a #GoodwillFind or two, like I did. Enjoy the madness and may the best team win!

—Casual Time #7 by Jim Swift

Have a story about a watch of yours? Share it with folks who want to hear about it.

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The watch: The Minimalist Three-Hand by Fossil ($75 to $150)